Chief Delphi - Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit

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- - Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82949)

Re: Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit

Okay, thanks guys. This makes it pretty hard to submit your team leader for an award in secret haha. Now to figure out which mentor actually has the account and where they are...

Re: Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynette (Post 923185)

So, FIRST's helpful hint does not work.

And my helpful suggestion has failed. Sorry guys, I don't have a login of my own to test this beforehand.

In addition, I've now received multiple reports that FIRST's system is giving errors to teams about their essays being over the character limit, while Microsoft Word is providing numbers below the limit.

I guess my best report is to just get the reports submitted and roll with the punches for the time being.

Re: Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit

There is always a difference in character count between word and a text file. Word does not count every letter and space and punctuation the same.

We found the best approach was to write in word, and then copy and past into a text editor file and then recheck everything. Then we cut and paste that file into the FIRST submission areas.

Re: Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amanda Morrison (Post 923580)

This has been a problem with both the old and new award submission system. Most word processors count an "enter" as a single character, while most other non-Unix applications read an "enter" as two ASCII characters, "carriage return" (ASCII = 13) and "line feed" (ASCII = 10). Thus, every instance of you hitting enter in Word is creating an extra uncounted character for your submission.

Since the award site isn't displaying paragraph breaks as is, if you are that tight on character count I recommend that you get rid of all "enters".

Re: Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karthik (Post 923595)

Well that explains why it took two taps of the backspace key to get rid of each paragraph return.

We always save a few characters for when we put the essay into the system. For the Chairman's essay, we started with 25 extras but ended up needing 40. I just wish that the entry section had a character counter so you could tell how close you are (or how many over). I thought it did last year, but we couldn't find it this year.

The WFA essay was under 600 words so the students had no problem with character count there.

Re: Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandyewillson (Post 924303)

Nine years ago, Flo and a Purdue University freshman
founded Westside Boiler Invasion (WBI) after observing the desperate need for the rejuvenation
of science and technology in education. With the respect Flo garnered after 24 years of teaching,
the community seized the opportunity. After relinquishing his positions as head wrestling and
assistant football coach, he was able to focus on the newly founded team. In addition to WBI, he
also helped found Purdue FIRST Programs, an organization that now supports three local teams.
Flo functions as the primary mentor for one FIRST Robotics Competition Team (FRC), one
FIRST Tech Competition (FTC) and three FIRST Lego League (FLL) teams. What's more? He
holds annual summer camps to further introduce robotics in the community where he uses FIRST
components to teach students design and engineering concepts. To this day, Flo continues to
expand FIRST, initiating five FRC teams and providing guidance as they develop.

Wow! A piece of a WFFA essay used as SPAM. I love it. I feel like we should leave this up for the pure hilarity of it!

-John

PS - Flo is the man, clearly.

Re: Woodie Flowers Character/Word limit

Quote:

Originally Posted by JVN (Post 924403)

Wow! A piece of a WFFA essay used as SPAM. I love it. I feel like we should leave this up for the pure hilarity of it!

-John

PS - Flo is the man, clearly.

I've deleted the spam, but left your quote of it for the "pure hilarity".